The storage of electronic data is one of the most important aspects in modem business practice as businesses increasingly rely on efficient and reliable access to necessary data. Because of the importance of this data, a variety of methods and systems have been developed to provide redundant and efficient data access to ensure the availability of the data.
However, businesses are confronted with balancing service quality, such as access speed in writing and retrieving data, robustness of the storage devices, and the like, with cost of maintaining and purchasing data storage systems. Although the cost of storage devices continues to decrease, the amount of data needed to be stored has increased, which in some instances has outstripped potential cost savings as customers need larger amounts of storage and quicker access to data. Further, the costs of maintaining data storage has increased as larger and more complex systems require better trained and greater number of IT personnel.
Fibre channel is a computer communications protocol which offers increased information transfer capabilities over pre-existing protocols. Thus, fibre channel has greatly benefited electronic storage. However, fibre channel devices are generally more expensive than legacy devices and require adapter cards and the like for connectivity utilizing legacy devices.
Therefore, it would be desirable to provide a system and method for increasing performance of devices utilizing fibre channel.